Speaker 1: In our last episode, we covered the story of David
Speaker 1: Parker Ray. He would later be known as the Toy
Speaker 1: box Killer. Today, we're picking up the story with David
Speaker 1: Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cindy Hendy facing more than
Speaker 1: two dozen charges for kidnapping and torturing three women. It
Speaker 1: happened in his homemade sex dungeon in the middle of
Speaker 1: the New Mexico Desert.
Speaker 2: He wanted to pick women who he could control, who
Speaker 2: he could scare, who he could hurt.
Speaker 1: At this time we knew of three victims, but that
Speaker 1: number would skyrocket. He kept journals and videos of his
Speaker 1: forty or so victims.
Speaker 3: David Parker Ray, when he was finished with those victims,
Speaker 3: would kill them.
Speaker 1: The testimony of the three women who miraculously made it
Speaker 1: out alive was the key to prosecuting him.
Speaker 4: The victims, what they endured is just.
Speaker 5: It's unbelievable and so unbelievable that there were so many
Speaker 5: people when they were first told, didn't believe it was true.
Speaker 1: Not just the people who first heard it, but the
Speaker 1: jury as well. They weren't so sure what they were
Speaker 1: hearing was true either.
Speaker 2: This is one of those cases it's like, until you
Speaker 2: did that last piece of the puzzle. There's really nothing
Speaker 2: else to do with it.
Speaker 1: My name is Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide.
Speaker 1: You're listening to part two of The Toy Box Killer
Speaker 1: and a warning that this episode contains graphic descriptions of
Speaker 1: sexual assault and violence. Discretion is advised. At the time
Speaker 1: of his arrest in nineteen ninety nine, David Parker Ray
Speaker 1: was fifty nine years old. He was a mechanic for
Speaker 1: the New Mexico Parks Department and lived in the tiny
Speaker 1: town of Elephant Butte, New Mexico, where he was very well.
Speaker 2: Liked, so he definitely had a sense of power of
Speaker 2: authority in that plafe.
Speaker 1: Alex Tomlin was a local news reporter.
Speaker 2: He's this legendary figure here for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2: You know, the joke all the time in the newsroom
Speaker 2: is the worst criminal you are, they give you all
Speaker 2: three names.
Speaker 1: David Parker Ray grew up near Albuquerque. He was a
Speaker 1: bit of a loaner who was picked on at school.
Speaker 1: He was a strange from his mother and only occasionally
Speaker 1: saw his alcoholic father, but he spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with his father's true detective magazines. They covered crime stories.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first of its kind. David
Speaker 1: said his fantasies about assaulting young women began when he
Speaker 1: was flipping through those pages. Then came his fascination with pornography.
Speaker 1: David's sister found his stash of pornographic pictures and hand
Speaker 1: sketched drawings of women tied up and tortured. When she
Speaker 1: questioned him about it, he left it off and said
Speaker 1: it was his new hobby. As a teenager, David Parker
Speaker 1: Ray even claimed he killed a woman, although there's no
Speaker 1: record of it ever happening. After high school, he bounced
Speaker 1: around from town to town taking jobs as a mechanic.
Speaker 1: He worked on cars, trains, and even fixed airplanes for
Speaker 1: the army. He was married and then divorced four times.
Speaker 1: He was a father and had a daughter named Glenda
Speaker 1: Jean Ray, who went by Jesse Ray.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't imagine what it's like to be
Speaker 2: the daughter of the embodiment of Satan, so I have
Speaker 2: to imagine her life was not an easy one.
Speaker 1: Jesse didn't see much of her Dan since he was
Speaker 1: always on the road. She grew up into a biker
Speaker 1: check who drove a motorcycle and wore blue jeans with
Speaker 1: a black leather vest. She shot a lot of pool
Speaker 1: and was a regular at the local bars in the
Speaker 1: dusty town of Truth or Consequences, which is a blip
Speaker 1: on the radar and located right next to Elephant Butte.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty six, when she was just nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, Jesse went to the FBI with a warning
Speaker 1: about her dad. She claimed that he had been abducting
Speaker 1: and torturing women, then selling them to buyers in Mexico.
Speaker 1: The FBI investigated for over a year before closing the
Speaker 1: file citing a lack of evidence. David Parker Ray was
Speaker 1: never charged with anything later went on to work for
Speaker 1: the state, so even after this tip to the FBI,
Speaker 1: he was able to get away with it. And who
Speaker 1: knows what really happened to make Jesse come forward, but
Speaker 1: she later claimed that she had made that story up.
Speaker 1: Jesse said he owed her money from when the two
Speaker 1: used to sell pot together. She wanted revenge, and then
Speaker 1: at some point their relationship changed.
Speaker 5: Jesse Ray reported him, but it's clear after that she
Speaker 5: became an active participant.
Speaker 1: Darren White worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety.
Speaker 5: Jesse Waver she was her dad's recruiter. She would go
Speaker 5: out and she would look for targets.
Speaker 1: So Jesse Ray went from turning her dad into the
Speaker 1: FBI to recruiting victims into the Toy Bob. So not
Speaker 1: only was David Parker Ray's girlfriend involved in kidnapping his victims,
Speaker 1: but so was his daughter. Following David's arrest in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, investigators located dozens of videotapes in the toy box.
Speaker 1: One tape showed a slender woman with long blonde hair
Speaker 1: shackled to a table with duct tape covering her eyes.
Speaker 1: This woman had a distinctive tattoo on her right ankle,
Speaker 1: and that tattoo led investigators to Kelly Garrett. Kelly Garrett
Speaker 1: is an important figure in this story. Once a happy newlywed,
Speaker 1: her marriage was destroyed by an event she couldn't even remember,
Speaker 1: a story no one believed. Even she doubted what had happened.
Speaker 1: But it all started with a girl she used to
Speaker 1: hang out with Jesse Ray.
Speaker 6: Jesse and I met. I don't remember exactly where we met.
Speaker 6: We had mutual friends, and anytime we'd see her at
Speaker 6: the bar, she would hang out with us.
Speaker 1: When Kelly was in her early twenties. She moved to
Speaker 1: Truther Consequences, New Mexico.
Speaker 6: We had a lot of fun back in the day.
Speaker 6: We were always going out, playing pool, going to the lake.
Speaker 6: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: The tiny town of Truther Consequences is famous both for
Speaker 1: its natural hot springs and its unusual name, which came
Speaker 1: courtesy of a radio game show.
Speaker 6: I think I had more fun here than I have
Speaker 6: anywhere else I've lived. But I think it's the people.
Speaker 6: I had really good friends here.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen ninety six. Kelly was a newlywed. Really,
Speaker 1: she had just been married for less than.
Speaker 6: A week, and we started fighting that day. I don't
Speaker 6: even know what we were fighting about, but I told
Speaker 6: him that I was leaving.
Speaker 1: So Kelly went out to blow off some steam from
Speaker 1: that silly fight.
Speaker 6: I was going to go hook up with some friends
Speaker 6: and go play pool, and I did. There were several
Speaker 6: of us that went out and we were bar hopping.
Speaker 6: I wasn't drinking. I was driving.
Speaker 1: They're just a handful of bars in the area, including
Speaker 1: a small biker bar named Raymonds. When you step inside,
Speaker 1: there are pool tables in a jukebox. It's dimly lip
Speaker 1: as strings of light shapes like jalapenos along the walls.
Speaker 1: That's where Kelly bumped into Jesse Ray, David Parker raised daughter.
Speaker 6: We weren't like close friends. We were just acquaintances kind
Speaker 6: of because we would just hang out when we see
Speaker 6: each other.
Speaker 1: After Raymonds, the group headed to another local bar called
Speaker 1: Blue Water Saloon. That's where Kelly's night took a bad turn.
Speaker 6: I ordered one beer and some friends of mine started fighting.
Speaker 6: They were a couple, so I took them home and
Speaker 6: came back and finished my beer.
Speaker 1: When Kelly returned, the rest of her friends wanted to
Speaker 1: go home, so she let them take her car.
Speaker 6: Jesse and I were the last two and without her car,
Speaker 6: Jesse said she was going to give me a ride home,
Speaker 6: and that's when Jesse took me toward Dad. She's the
Speaker 6: one that took me to him. She knew what was
Speaker 6: going to happen.
Speaker 1: David Parker. Ray wound up keeping Kelly in his toy
Speaker 1: box for two and a half days.
Speaker 6: When I was captive. I don't remember him saying too much.
Speaker 6: I remember him telling me at one point that they
Speaker 6: had been watching me for years.
Speaker 1: So what did David Parker Ray do to Kelly in
Speaker 1: the toy box.
Speaker 6: I have no idea. I don't remember. I just remember
Speaker 6: being in his house.
Speaker 1: She believes now that she was drugged, which affected her memory,
Speaker 1: and when she didn't turn up all weekend, Kelly's husband
Speaker 1: got concerned.
Speaker 6: And my husband at the time put a missing persons
Speaker 6: report out on me.
Speaker 1: A couple days later. Kelly remembers being driven in David
Speaker 1: Parker race truck.
Speaker 6: The only thing that sticks in my memory from that
Speaker 6: ride is him stopping to get coffee.
Speaker 1: Kelly said she felt out of it during the ride.
Speaker 6: David dropped me off at my mother in law's house,
Speaker 6: which is where my husband was, and he told her
Speaker 6: that he found me wandering on the beach out at
Speaker 6: the Lake Elephant Boot Lake because he lives out there.
Speaker 1: Kelly's husband had questions, most importantly, where had she been
Speaker 1: all weekend?
Speaker 6: And I told him I didn't remember anything, and they
Speaker 6: did not believe me.
Speaker 1: Kelly's husband was furious. The two had had an argument,
Speaker 1: and Kelly disappeared for the weekend, but returned with no
Speaker 1: memory of what happened. Her husband and his family didn't
Speaker 1: believe her. They all assumed she was with another.
Speaker 6: Man felt horrible. But who's gonna believe me when you
Speaker 6: say I don't know where I've been all weekend. I'm
Speaker 6: not sure I would believe somebody if they told me that.
Speaker 1: Her husband was so angry that he wouldn't even let
Speaker 1: Kelly into the house.
Speaker 6: Like the next day, we went to the courthouse and
Speaker 6: signed an oment papers, so we were married a total
Speaker 6: of thirteen days.
Speaker 1: Kelly never reported what happened to the police, and she
Speaker 1: tried to forget what little she remembered. Three years later,
Speaker 1: a news story would change everything. The report mentioned a
Speaker 1: woman with a tattoo on her ankle. Kelly's former sister
Speaker 1: in law was watching the news in shock. Prosecutor Jim
Speaker 1: Yance explains.
Speaker 4: Her ex in laws were vacationing, I believe in southern California,
Speaker 4: and when they checked in to the hotel, the person
Speaker 4: at the desert, oh, you're from Truth to Consequences. That's
Speaker 4: where the story's on the news. Fun. They didn't know
Speaker 4: anything about it, but they did recall Kelly. They did
Speaker 4: recall the tattoo. When they got back, they notified the FBI.
Speaker 4: They indicated that it was in fact their former daughter
Speaker 4: in law and From that, we were able to locate
Speaker 4: Kelly Garrett and the tribal tattoo was matched to the
Speaker 4: tattoo on her leg.
Speaker 6: Beginning of March, I think somebody called and said I
Speaker 6: wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 1: Two investigators arrived with the tape they found of Kelly
Speaker 1: in the toy box.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, they did show me the video.
Speaker 1: After watching it, her memories of what happened still weren't clear.
Speaker 6: I remember bits and pieces, and if I remember enough
Speaker 6: of them, I can put them together.
Speaker 1: Then Kelly shared some vivid nightmare she had been having.
Speaker 1: These nightmarees started after her time in the toy box.
Speaker 6: I would have a nightmare about somebody holding a knife
Speaker 6: to my throat, or I would have a nightmare about
Speaker 6: being tied to a table. Duct tape has always been
Speaker 6: a trigger since then, but I didn't know why. It
Speaker 6: took me years before I could even say the word
Speaker 6: duct tape. I called it icky tape for a long time.
Speaker 6: And if I'm paying attention, then somebody's using it. Most
Speaker 6: of the time, I can stand there while they use it,
Speaker 6: But if they do it and I'm not paying attention,
Speaker 6: I scream and panic and run away and.
Speaker 1: Cry investigators couldn't help but know the eerie similarities of
Speaker 1: Kelly's nightmares to what David Parker Ray did to his
Speaker 1: other victims.
Speaker 6: He always had his keys on his belt loop, and
Speaker 6: that's a trigger, the jingling of keys.
Speaker 1: The more Kelly talked, the more her painful memories flooded back.
Speaker 6: That's when it all clicked.
Speaker 1: She realized that those nightmare she had been having were
Speaker 1: actually suppressed memories, and then it started to come back
Speaker 1: to her. She remembered her friend's father threatening her with
Speaker 1: a knife and then being duct taped and handcuffed to
Speaker 1: a fitness bench.
Speaker 6: That felt good that I could actually put things together,
Speaker 6: but it was also horrifying.
Speaker 1: Police filed additional charges against David Parker Ray and arrested
Speaker 1: his daughter, Jesse Ray. They charged her with kidnapping, criminal
Speaker 1: sexual penetration, assault, and conspiracy. Jesse Ray was arrested thirty
Speaker 1: four days after her dad was put behind bars. With
Speaker 1: David Parker Ray, his girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, and now his
Speaker 1: daughter Jesse Ray all in custody, could prosecutors get one
Speaker 1: of them to flip. It's now late nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: and David Parker Ray still isn't talking, so investigators leaned
Speaker 1: on one of his two accomplices, girlfriend Cindy Hendy. Jim
Speaker 1: Yance was the deputy district attorney.
Speaker 4: Initially, she described herself as being one of his victims,
Speaker 4: but she became involved in actually enjoying the torture part
Speaker 4: of it, and became his accomplice.
Speaker 1: If convicted, Cindy Hendy faced more than two hundred years
Speaker 1: in prison. So prosecutors offered Cindy a deal. Plead guilty
Speaker 1: and cooperate with their investigation and they'll reduce the charges
Speaker 1: mean in a lighter sentence. So Cindy agreed to the
Speaker 1: plea deal. It required her to testify against David Parker Wray.
Speaker 1: This is where the story turns even darker and a warning.
Speaker 1: In all the cases I've covered, this is one of
Speaker 1: the darkest details I have come across. What she shared
Speaker 1: shocked the investigators. Cindy Hendy reported that David Parker Ray
Speaker 1: killed at least fourteen people. He reportedly dropped the bodies
Speaker 1: an elephant Butte Lake and ravines in the area. She said,
Speaker 1: to keep the bodies from rising to the surface, he
Speaker 1: would do something completely gruesome. Parker Way would cut out
Speaker 1: the stomach of each victim and then fill the body
Speaker 1: with rocks.
Speaker 4: The state police turned over every rock between Alburquirkue, and
Speaker 4: Elf and Butte Tiny to find other victims, but we
Speaker 4: were never able to find those individuals.
Speaker 1: Then, in late nineteen ninety nine, David's accomplice and girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Cindy Hendy, had a change of heart. She stopped cooperating
Speaker 1: in the investigation. Cindy told the court that she was
Speaker 1: still in love with David, so she fired her attorney
Speaker 1: and asked to withdraw her plea. Cindy's new lawyer argued
Speaker 1: that Cindy had an eighth grade education and a mental
Speaker 1: disability that made it difficult for her to understand the
Speaker 1: consequences of the deal she made with prosecutors. But prosecutors
Speaker 1: believed that David Parker Ray's daughter Jesse Ray, helped to
Speaker 1: convince Cindy Hendy not to testify. The two had jail
Speaker 1: cells near one another and would often communicate. I cannot
Speaker 1: believe that is allowed. David allegedly wrote letters to Cindy
Speaker 1: urging her not to testify against him. Still, the judge
Speaker 1: ruled that Cindy Hendy could not change her plea. Even
Speaker 1: with the ruling, Cindy refused to testify against David. It
Speaker 1: was the first of many setbacks for prosecutors. David Parker
Speaker 1: Ray faced three separate trials, one for each victim. His
Speaker 1: lawyer argued successfully that if he was tried for his
Speaker 1: crimes against three victims together, he wouldn't have a fair
Speaker 1: shot at proving his innocence, So the three cases were
Speaker 1: separated into three different trials. They would go one victim
Speaker 1: at a time. Then there was this hurdle, and keep
Speaker 1: in mind, this was a different time. Two of those
Speaker 1: victims were sex workers, and prosecutors feared that that made
Speaker 1: them lack credibility.
Speaker 2: He knew the type of woman he wanted to pick up.
Speaker 1: TV reporter Alex Tomlin covered the story.
Speaker 2: He wanted them to probably have a history of going
Speaker 2: out and maybe drinking too much, of going home with
Speaker 2: people that they didn't know on the first night. He
Speaker 2: wanted to pick women who no one was going to
Speaker 2: cost too much of a fuss if they didn't come
Speaker 2: home in three days.
Speaker 1: They had video of him torturing and raping, and investigators
Speaker 1: believed he was a killer, but without any bodies or
Speaker 1: other evidence, they couldn't charge him with any other crimes.
Speaker 2: They used to open the toy box for reporters to
Speaker 2: come in, just to stir up people's memories.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, all of this affected tourism. No
Speaker 1: one wanted to go in or around the lake.
Speaker 2: It's one of those situations where you get around it
Speaker 2: and it's almost like you can physically feel evil. It's
Speaker 2: a thickness, the sensation. It's the way your skin crawls,
Speaker 2: the way the wind hits you. It's just so uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Somebody out there saw something, somebody knows something, and it's
Speaker 2: just gonna be a matter of time until they say something.
Speaker 1: Cadaver dogs also searched David Parker Rai's property, but the
Speaker 1: only bones they found belonged to animals.
Speaker 2: Keep was strategic. I mean, that's why you got away
Speaker 2: with it for so long. That was his game.
Speaker 1: Then another tragedy three became two when one of the
Speaker 1: victims mysteriously died. Angela Montana was held in the toy
Speaker 1: box a few weeks before Cynthia V. Hill, but just
Speaker 1: before the trial, she reportedly died of a drug overdose.
Speaker 1: She was only twenty eight years old. Suddenly, the first case,
Speaker 1: which was to find David Parker Ray guilty for his
Speaker 1: crimes against Kelly Garrett. One that seemed like a slam
Speaker 1: dung for prosecutors was crumbling. They needed Kelly Garrett to
Speaker 1: be a witness at her own trial. Here's Kelly.
Speaker 6: I told him, No, I knew how much it was
Speaker 6: going to bring up. I knew howpset it was going
Speaker 6: to make me, and I changed.
Speaker 1: My mind ultimately and bravely. She agreed to testify.
Speaker 6: People needed to hear, people needed to know that he
Speaker 6: was bad.
Speaker 1: The trial, schedule to kick off in the spring of
Speaker 1: two thousand, faced delay after delay. The defense wanted the
Speaker 1: case tried outside of Elephant Butte in order to find
Speaker 1: an impartial jury, so the judge moved the case some
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty miles north to the tiny town
Speaker 1: of Tierra Maria. Then, in between four long weeks of
Speaker 1: jury selection, David Parker Array was hospitalized twice with hard issues.
Speaker 1: More delays came when David's lawyer had to deal with
Speaker 1: a personal issue. When he finally returned to work, both
Speaker 1: sides held several heated hearings about what evidence prosecutor Jim
Speaker 1: Yuns could show to the jury. Some evidence was just
Speaker 1: too graphic, and there was another problem. Kelly Garrett was
Speaker 1: held in the toy box in nineteen ninety six, but
Speaker 1: the evidence was seized in nineteen ninety nine when police
Speaker 1: rescued Cynthia V.
Speaker 6: Hill.
Speaker 1: Now prosecutors had to prove that each piece of evidence
Speaker 1: was also present three years earlier. This led to dozens
Speaker 1: of pieces of evidence being excluded from the trial. The
Speaker 1: most heated debate over evidence involved the audio tapes found
Speaker 1: that described the crimes in the toy box.
Speaker 2: He played a tape that, in chilling detail, told them
Speaker 2: exactly what was going to happen to them.
Speaker 1: The judge did not allow it to be played at
Speaker 1: Kelly Garrett's trial because Kelly couldn't remember hearing it, but
Speaker 1: the judge did allow the jury to see a videotape
Speaker 1: of Kelly Garrett that was recorded in the toy box.
Speaker 1: When the trial began in the summer of two thousand,
Speaker 1: that videotape became the prosecution's key piece of evidence. Durs
Speaker 1: heard hours of testimony from law enforcement and first responders
Speaker 1: before prosecutors finally played that videotape. As the six minute
Speaker 1: video flickered on an old TV monitor. Jurs leaned forward
Speaker 1: in their seats to take a closer look. The recording
Speaker 1: showed Kelly restrained on a table. It showed Parker Rey
Speaker 1: assaulting her by groping her and placing duct tape over
Speaker 1: her mouth and eyes. Without an audio, it would be
Speaker 1: up to Kelly to describe what happened before, during, and
Speaker 1: after this six minute long tape. But remember, Kelly couldn't
Speaker 1: recall what happened. She believed she had been drugged for.
Speaker 6: A long time. I don't think I was reliable because
Speaker 6: I couldn't compose myself enough sometimes to get out of bed.
Speaker 1: For two long hours, Kelly sat on the witness stand
Speaker 1: and recounted what she could remember happened that weekend in
Speaker 1: July nineteen ninety six. She said she had a beard
Speaker 1: a local bar and then felt light headed. Jesse Ray
Speaker 1: offered to drive her home, but instead she took her
Speaker 1: to her father's place. Kelly remembered that David claimed to
Speaker 1: be a part of a Satanic group that wanted to
Speaker 1: use her as a sex toy. Then they tied her
Speaker 1: to what looked like a weightlifting bench. She then explained
Speaker 1: how over the next three days David Parker Ray abused her.
Speaker 1: She remembered his voice and said that at some point
Speaker 1: the duct tape over her eyes became loose and she
Speaker 1: was able to see his face. Kelly explained that she
Speaker 1: always thought what happened to her was a nightmare that
Speaker 1: eventually would go away, but it never did. It destroyed
Speaker 1: her life.
Speaker 6: I used to be fun and outgoing, and I could
Speaker 6: go places alone, and and now I stay home very
Speaker 6: seldom ever go out. I can't even go to the
Speaker 6: grocery store by myself.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Jim Yons then warned the jurors of the graphic
Speaker 1: nature of what came next. They would see the inside
Speaker 1: of the toy box. As jurors nervously shuffled in their seats,
Speaker 1: Jim held up photos.
Speaker 4: We had cheers that asked for breaks. We had chers
Speaker 4: that were just shaking their heads. Now, we actually had
Speaker 4: chors sometimes that would put their head down or sobbing.
Speaker 4: It was incredibly difficult for them to hear it.
Speaker 1: The quarter appointed public defender never called any witnesses to
Speaker 1: the stand, but simply used his cross examination of the
Speaker 1: prosecution's witnesses to cast down in the minds of the jurors.
Speaker 1: He asked Kelly why she never told the police or
Speaker 1: even her friends or family what happened to her in
Speaker 1: the toy box. With her hands trembling, Kelly locked eyes
Speaker 1: with the lawyer explained she thought that these memories were nightmares.
Speaker 6: We couldn't prove that I was drugged because those drugs
Speaker 6: were found three years later.
Speaker 1: The defense attorney used that same strategy to pick away
Speaker 1: at the contents of the toy box. The public defender
Speaker 1: set out to make each of the prosecution's witnesses unreliable.
Speaker 1: He asked the same question to each investigator who testified,
Speaker 1: do you know if these items were in the toy
Speaker 1: box back in nineteen ninety six. One by one, they
Speaker 1: each answered, I don't know. As for the defendant, David Parker,
Speaker 1: ray He Warwick became dugged. His uniform a striped cowboy
Speaker 1: shirt with brown jeans and cowboy boots. He appeared thinner
Speaker 1: and then at the time of his arrest, and his
Speaker 1: slicked back hair had more streaks of gray. His demeanor
Speaker 1: changed from smiling and flirting with his attorney's assistant to
Speaker 1: look looking tired and slumping over in his chair. He
Speaker 1: continued to complain of chest pain, and by the time
Speaker 1: both sides made their closing arguments, David Parker Ray was
Speaker 1: joined at the defense table with a giant tank of
Speaker 1: oxygen to help his breathing. As both sides stated their
Speaker 1: case to the jury, Parker Ray's lawyer again shifted the
Speaker 1: focus on the victims. He attacked Kelly Garrett's credibility and
Speaker 1: called her memory selective. He told jurors, if you're telling
Speaker 1: the truth, you don't have to remember. He argued that
Speaker 1: the sex between David Parker Ray and Kelly Garrett was
Speaker 1: consensual and that the video proved it. Prosecutor Jim Yons
Speaker 1: got in the last word. He pointed out that Kelly
Speaker 1: did not need to put herself through the pain of testifying,
Speaker 1: to face the world, to tell them your most horrifying
Speaker 1: story and to be called a liar, but Kelly chose
Speaker 1: to do so. In spite of all of that. The
Speaker 1: case went to the jury on the app afternoon of
Speaker 1: July twelve, two thousand and now it was in their
Speaker 1: hands to decide David Parker Ray's fate. Imagine this, Just
Speaker 1: minutes after jurors began deliberations, David Parker Ray had to
Speaker 1: be escorted out of the courtroom. The now six year
Speaker 1: old felt a pain in his chest. His lawyer called
Speaker 1: it heart irregularities, and he was sent to a local
Speaker 1: clinic for treatment.
Speaker 4: My greatest fear was David being released.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Jim Yarns knew his case was strong, but he
Speaker 1: was afraid of what the jury would come back with.
Speaker 1: Yance was frustrated that the judge didn't allow some key evidence,
Speaker 1: specifically the initiation tape that David Parker Ray played for
Speaker 1: his victims. Although jurors didn't see all of the evidence,
Speaker 1: the investigators and lawyers did.
Speaker 4: We saw all of the imagers. Now, some of them
Speaker 4: were hand drawings of David's. Some of were actual photographs.
Speaker 4: But no, I'd never seen anything like them before, nor
Speaker 4: do I hope to again.
Speaker 1: While jury deliberations continued into their second day, the tiny
Speaker 1: town of Tierra Maria was packed with journalists awaiting for
Speaker 1: a verdict. Prosecutors worried that the longer the jury deliberated,
Speaker 1: the greater chance of an acquittal.
Speaker 4: On day one of this investigation, everybody worked together for
Speaker 4: one purpose, and that was to stop the nightmare David
Speaker 4: Parker Ray.
Speaker 1: Then on Thursday, July fourteenth, two thousand, the judge called
Speaker 1: everyone back into the courtroom. By that point, the jury
Speaker 1: had spent days deliberating for all twelve counts. They couldn't
Speaker 1: agree on a unanimous verdict.
Speaker 4: That trial ended up in a misstoial.
Speaker 1: The hung jury was a major victory for David Parker Ray,
Speaker 1: who back in the courtroom, showed no emotion. The prosecutors
Speaker 1: were stunned. They learned from reporters that two twenty somethingter
Speaker 1: female durers who were the holdouts for securing a conviction.
Speaker 1: The two said they didn't believe Kelly Garrett's testimony, and
Speaker 1: one even believed the sex was consensual.
Speaker 6: I was there willingly, That's what that was said in court.
Speaker 6: They found over one hundred videos but only found three
Speaker 6: of us alive. But I was there willingly because most
Speaker 6: of the people that he took were either into drugs
Speaker 6: or prostitutes, and I was neither.
Speaker 1: It's true at the time, these women were not seen
Speaker 1: as believable, and we know that this is still a
Speaker 1: problem today. I know this from my own experience covering
Speaker 1: the Long Island serial killer. It's valid to question if
Speaker 1: that case where multiple women's bodies were found along the
Speaker 1: shoreline would have been taken more seriously and solved years
Speaker 1: earlier if the women hadn't been sex workers. Even with
Speaker 1: her credibility being questioned, what was more painful for Kelly
Speaker 1: is what she heard from a juror.
Speaker 6: Some people like it rough. It was one of the
Speaker 6: jurors that said that some people like it Rod. I'll
Speaker 6: never forget her saying That's about the only thing I
Speaker 6: remember about that trial.
Speaker 1: A man with a homemade torture chamber, who had journals
Speaker 1: and videos detailing what he did to dozens of victims,
Speaker 1: somehow managed to escape being convicted.
Speaker 7: I was scared when Kelly's came back a hungry I
Speaker 7: was really scared.
Speaker 1: Cynthia Viha was preparing for her own trial. She didn't
Speaker 1: testify in the first case because she was the star
Speaker 1: witness in Parker Ray's upcoming second trial.
Speaker 7: I don't understand how a woman could not believe her.
Speaker 7: There's a whole video of her being tortured, there's drawings,
Speaker 7: there's rules. He had never trust the chain captive. What
Speaker 7: does that say? A chained captive that tells you right
Speaker 7: there there because they're not willing. So I don't know
Speaker 7: how anybody could believe it he was innocent. That's when
Speaker 7: I got really scared that they weren't going.
Speaker 1: To believe me. For this trial, David Parker Ray would
Speaker 1: have to find a new lawyer. His previous attorney, a
Speaker 1: twelve year veteran of the Public Defender's Office, announced that
Speaker 1: he was taking a new job in Antarctica. That's right,
Speaker 1: he was moving to a new continent. But before leaving,
Speaker 1: he stopped at a colleague's office with a message.
Speaker 8: Hey, look, I'm leaving the Public Defender's Office and I've
Speaker 8: got a case I want you to take. Will you
Speaker 8: take it? I said, well, sure, what is it? And
Speaker 8: he says it's that case? And I said that case
Speaker 8: And he said, yes, that one.
Speaker 1: That case now belonged to Lee McMillan.
Speaker 8: They basically threw me to the wolves. David Parker Ray
Speaker 8: was one of those cases that every attorney hopes he'll
Speaker 8: get once in a lifetime and then finally gets one
Speaker 8: and never wants another one.
Speaker 1: But then things took another strange turn one weekend when
Speaker 1: a giant black bear broke through a plexiglass window and
Speaker 1: rummaged through the courthouse. The bear wound up, chewing on
Speaker 1: some cans before leaving, along with a broken window in
Speaker 1: charge of glass. The bear left behind a bloody trail
Speaker 1: of Paul prints. One courthouse worker joked that the case
Speaker 1: couldn't get any weirder, but it did. Before the retrial began,
Speaker 1: the judge, who was just fifty five years old at
Speaker 1: the time, had a massive heart attack and died. Just
Speaker 1: the day before that. He had gone to the jailhouse
Speaker 1: and warned the guards to leave David Parker Ray alone.
Speaker 1: He had heard that he was being picked on. Replacing
Speaker 1: him was Judge Kevin Swayze, who, at thirty eight years old,
Speaker 1: was the youngest district judge in New Mexico.
Speaker 8: This is his first major trial after he was appointed
Speaker 8: to the bench.
Speaker 1: A new judge and a complete redo of the trial
Speaker 1: meant anything was possible.
Speaker 2: He had just told the police that he was ready
Speaker 2: to talk.
Speaker 1: To them, but prosecutors kept running into the same rule blox.
Speaker 5: It almost goes back to that hole. This is so outrageous.
Speaker 5: It's hard for people to believe.
Speaker 1: What lengths would investigators go to to get David Parker
Speaker 1: Ray to reveal his secrets.
Speaker 3: There was some talk that David Parker Why would plead
Speaker 3: guilty to everything as long as the state would make
Speaker 3: a deal.
Speaker 1: But would they run out of time?
Speaker 5: Probably the one thing that irritates the hell out of
Speaker 5: me about this case.
Speaker 1: In the final episode of The Toy Box Killer, prosecutors
Speaker 1: get another chance to convict David Parker Ray, and this
Speaker 1: time they'll get some help from an unlikely source. What
Speaker 1: happened in the end was something that shocked David Parker
Speaker 1: Ray's own lawyer.
Speaker 8: I did not trust if he would not start his
Speaker 8: own hard walk out, that's.
Speaker 1: Next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American
Speaker 1: Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: American Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloane Glass
Speaker 1: and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
Speaker 1: Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The
Speaker 1: series is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with
Speaker 1: additional writing by Benfetter and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart teap is Ali Perry. And
Speaker 1: Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, additional
Speaker 1: editing support from Nika Ruka Tanner, Robbins, brit Robashow, Dave Seya,
Speaker 1: and Patrick Walsh. American Homicide theme song was composed by
Speaker 1: Oliver Bains of Noisier Music Library provided by my Music.
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